Open Letter to 3rd Form W...

Dear 3^rd Form W,

Today I presided over your end-of-term English and Music exams, an experience which was probably as much work for me as it was for you as I constantly scanned the room to discourage you from cheating at any given moment – and believe me, some of you were deliberately trying to cheat! The experience was truly an eternal one for as you probably felt the minutes fly by and dwindle down, they seemed to grow longer and longer as I just stood there staring at you.

For more than two hours I watched you toil over such simple tasks as remembering and comprehending a paragraph you had just read, or creating from your imagination a simple scenario given nothing but a location and time of day, and of course picking out simple pieces of grammar such as nouns and verbs. As for your Music exam, I am not saying that I could successfully explain the differences in musical developments of the 21^st century as opposed to the 16^th without having studied, but I like to think I could have made a decent show of it. On the other hand, I have not studied music since I was younger than you and I recognize a full rest from a quarter rest when I see it and to know that for many of you the difference between success and failure in this realm is simply the application of yourselves in an intentioned, focused and disciplined way is staggering to me.

Apparently, though, all was not lost this day because I stumbled across an important realization and an insightful piece of learning that I otherwise might not have had.

Standing there watching you fret over the Greek origin of the word “music,” I began to see you in a way that you probably cannot see yourselves. I saw glimpses of your capacity, that of which you are capable. I saw icebergs of potential whose very tops, which appear obvious on the surface, pale in comparison to the gargantuan collection underneath the water.

The ability to look at someone and see them in this way is one which comes with time, experience, and God willing, a bit of maturity and I know all of this because as it flashes through my consciousness it has a familiar ring to it. Not the familiarity that it is something I have said before but rather something I have heard. It is exactly what was told to me when I was your age and something I similarly refused to let permeate me. And one of the sad ironies of life is that such insight and observation is often passed on to those who need to hear it and it is completely lost on them.

It is what I have come to realize many adults were right in telling me for you see, I was once very much like you. I did what I was assigned but only did enough to get by and hardly anything more. Sometimes I did even less. And as I slowly paced in between the desks of the classroom today, periodically peering over your should to see if you could figure out how to spell “Pythagoras,” I saw in my mind’s eye moments in my childhood and adolescence where I sold myself short when it came to pushing myself to achieve the potential others saw in me. I was reminded of the rule my father put in place when I was 12; for every hour of television I wanted to watch, I had to read for an hour first. And I remembered how I abandoned both activities in favor of playing basketball or riding my bicycle. Today I was acutely reminded of the not-so-subtle urgings of my mother to study for the regional spelling bee of which I was going to take part when I was ten years old. And I remember being knocked out after my third word: various. Since that day I have never forgotten how to spell that word, nor have I forgotten the sting of disappointment which may have been staved off a little more that day had I simply picked up my study guide instead of a video game controller.

But I am not telling you anything you have not heard already, am I? You can accomplish anything you want to. You know this. You know it in your marrow. But you know equally as well that no one is going to do it for you and I think you are scared. You are scared to try and fail. You are scared of how you will look if that happens. Moreover, you are scared to succeed and of what that will look like. For if you succeed while the masses do not, you will be ostracized. You will be different. You will not fit and you will be ridiculed.

And that sucks.

You see, you are at that age when children are severely courted by the trappings of appearances, popularity, and belonging. And it is around this time when the talons of said beasts grab you and make those first and deepest of cuts, and the cost of letting them do so is mediocrity; to play beneath your intelligence so people will like you more – or at least pretend to. In the fourth and fifth formers I see this trade off of potential for acceptance many times over, and I see many of you poised to follow in their footsteps. I also see many of you simply standing at the edge of that path, reading its signs and giving consideration to traveling along it. But I also so you aware of the path which sits beside it, a path whose boundaries are hard work and sacrifice but whose destination is character. It is a path less chosen for obvious reasons.

Why do I tell you this? As I have already written, these are things you inherently know. Well, I am not writing this for you. I am writing it for me. For a time I thought that the window within which I could expand myself, live up to and possibly exceed my potential and achieve the most grand and glorious dreams for myself had past. I was lulled to sleep by the same aforementioned mediocrity. And standing here today, watching you struggle with something which is monumental today but in the future will be like a drop in the ocean of your life, I came to realize that I still have within me so much I can do with my life and it is all too often and easily that I forget that.

I am 31 years old. Next week, I’ll be 32. Some of you look at me and say, “Sir, ya old,” and in some respects, you are right. And then I am reminded of Jake, a man I met last summer in Chicago while taking my dogs to a dog park. Jake was there with his dog, a poodle which had taken a liking to my dogs, Mojo and Savannah. As is typically the custom at the dog park, he and I began talking and I quickly learned much about this man, now in his 70’s. He had many careers in his life and had just finished a book about Chicago firefighters; a project born out of an instinct to photograph a burning mattress. He gave me his card and promised to keep me informed about the release of the book and in a reply to my first e-mail to him he wrote,

“I remember when an old [guy] like me said I was a bright and talented young man, and of course, I didn’t believe him. Twenty years later I did. Don’t wait that long.”

Jake is at least 30 to 40 years my senior and given his time, experience and maturity, he is able to see in me a capacity that I sometimes cannot even fathom. But if I draw a parallel between the potential my elders see in me and the potential I see in you, I can’t help but believe it is one of those universally applicable truths to any phase of life. And armed with that knowledge, I can move forward confident that there is nothing I cannot do.

From a sarcastic and cynical lens, I might thank you for underachieving, not living up to your potential and for playing beneath your intelligence, but I won’t. However, I do thank you for being my teacher today. You have given me a tremendous gift and have reminded me of a most important lesson that I need to keep in mind and practice.

Sincerely,

Mr. Konold